CBTS Logo

The Slick-Waldron Debate:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (part 5)

by | Jan 28, 2016 | Uncategorized

One or two more matters should come up for discussion before I finish my post-game analysis of the Slick-Waldron debate over the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and healing.  Here, I think, we pass from the good things I learned and the ugly of my confusion over the debate question to the bad.

I think Matt’s use of 1 Corinthians 1:7 was bad.  1 Corinthians 1:7 reads:  “so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  In this statement Paul congratulates the Corinthian church for the fact that they do not lack in any gift as they await the Second Coming.  Matt pressed the text as a proof that all the spiritual gifts given to the Corinthians are normative for all churches till the Second Coming.

Well, quite evidently the text teaches no such thing.  I actually asked Matt about this in the cross-examination.  The text is plainly not normative but descriptive.  Descriptive texts are not necessarily normative.  While sometimes descriptive texts do indirectly teach us biblical norms, using them this way is a lot more complicated than Matt seems to think.

The Book of Judges is a major, biblical case in point.  Judges is descriptive but not directly normative.  The text that says that Judas went out and hanged himself is descriptive, but not directly normative.  Even so 1 Corinthians says nothing about whether other churches should normatively have all the Corinthians’ spiritual gifts.  It only says the Corinthians did in the first century.  It says nothing about these gifts lasting till the Second Coming.  It only says that they had them while waiting for the Second Coming.  The text does not prove what Matt thinks, and the fact that he thinks so manifests bad hermeneutics in which the important distinction between descriptive and normative texts is ignored.

Another thing that I thought was really bad was the incredibly naïve way that Matt quoted a couple of statements from my book.  Perhaps the worst was his use of my tongue in cheek remark in my book that there is prophecy in the church today.  He seemed to take it as a kind of unintentional admission that I granted his argument.  I can’t see why else he would have raised the issue.  Here is the statement in the context of my book.  I think you will see why Matt’s use of it was so bad.  “I have something very shocking to say to you.  I can prove to you that there is prophecy in the church today!  I can prove it to you very simply. According to the Bibles you hold in your hands, and in particular Revelation 1:1-3, the book of Revelation is a prophecy.  We are a church.  There is, thus, prophecy in the church today.”  My point was, of course, that the ministry of apostles and prophets continues in the church today through their inscripturated words.  This helps us understand passages like Ephesians 4 where apostles and prophets are given (Ephesians 4:13) “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  I certainly did not mean to say, and I think Matt should have known this, that there are living prophets in the world today.

The Slick-Waldron Debate:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (part 4)

by | Jan 27, 2016 | Uncategorized

Another topic which I want to follow up on from my debate with Matt Slick has to do with my first assertion that the apostles of Christ are the first and greatest of the gifts Christ gave to His church.  Matt’s response to this was to show that the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit were the greatest charismatic gifts of Christ to the church.  Gotcha!

Well, of course, the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit are greater gifts than Apostles.  But again we see here why Matt was so concerned to have that word charismatic in the title.  Anything called a charisma in the New Testament thus becomes a charismatic gift.

It is true that in Romans 5:15, 16, and 6:23 salvation and eternal life are described as charismas.  (I actually don’t think charisma is used of the blood of Christ or the Holy Spirit, but I will let that go.)  It is also true that I would concede that these things are greater than the gift of Apostles of Christ.  With qualification I would grant this.

But here I think that Matt was playing semantic games with the phrase, charismatic gifts.  I think everybody realizes that when we talk about charismatic gifts we are normally talking about gifts given for ministry and not about the gift of salvation.  Furthermore, when Paul lists the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:28; 12:29; and Ephesians 4:11, he clearly and significantly lists Apostles first.  This was the basis and the sufficient basis for my claim that the Apostles of Christ are the first and greatest gift given by Christ to the church.

The Slick-Waldron Debate:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (part 3)

by | Jan 26, 2016 | Uncategorized

In my last blog post I promised to share the word studies that have confirmed for me that Matt Slick’s distinction between charisma gifts and doma gifts was overdrawn.  Remember that his assertion was that Apostles of Christ were a doma gift and not a charismatic gift.  Hence, he could claim that all the charismatic gifts continue in the church.  As to the Claim that Charisma and Doma are Distinct and that Charisma is Never Used of Apostles, let me share the actual state of the biblical evidence.

First, Slick’s assertion assumes that a careful distinction between these two words is maintained in this matter in the New Testament.  Such a distinction is not apparent.

Actually, Doma is used only four times in the New Testament.  Matthew 7:11 and Luke 11:13 use it of parents giving gifts to their children.  Philippians 4:17 uses it of a church’s financial gift to Paul.  It is used only once of spiritual gifts.  That occurrence is Ephesians 4:8. It is in a quotation from the Old Testament, Psalm 68:18. It is paralleled, however, by the use the verb from which it is derived in Ephesians 4:11, didoomi.

The comparative rarity of the use of doma in the New Testament is important.  There is no contrast instituted or suggested between charisma and doma in the NT.  Such a distinction may be imposed on these two words by Charismatics (wise in their assumed knowledge of spiritual gifts), but there is no reason to make a sharp or significant distinction between doma and charisma.  The root of doma, didoomi, simply means give.  Charisma derived from charis and charidzoo simply emphasizes what didoomi already implies that a gift is gracious and not deserved.

Confirming, I think, the fact that no such distinction as Matt assumed exists between doma and charisma is this fact.  It is clear from Ephesians 4:8-11 that prophets and pastor-teachers are both doma and charisma.  (Cf. Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:4-10.)  If these gifts are both doma and charisma, why not Apostles of Christ?

Second, charisma is actually used in contexts where the gift of Apostles is discussed.

1 Corinthians 12:28, 30, and 31 use it in the context in which Apostles are mentioned as the first and greatest of the gifts.  The implication of the phrase “gifts of healing” (especially its use in 1 Cor. 12:31) is not that the other gifts mentioned are not charisma, but that all of them are, including the apostolate.

Moreover, in 1 Corinthians 12:4 charisma is used in the text that stands as a kind of heading for the discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14.  Thus, the mention of apostles in the following discussion of gifts which extends through the end of the chapter (where Apostles are mentioned twice, 12:28-29) identifies apostles as one of the charismata of the Spirit.

Additionally, in a couple of places the root of charisma, charis, is used of the grace of apostleship.

  • Romans 1:5 through whom we have received grace (charis) and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake,
  • Romans 12:3 For through the grace (charis) given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
  • Romans 15:15 But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace (charis) that was given me from God,
  • Ephesians 3:5-7 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; 6 to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,  7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace (charis) which was given to me according to the working of His power

Each of these texts identify Paul’s apostolate as a charis which he received from God.  It does not make sense, then, to assert that the apostolate is not a charisma.

Third, the gift-terminology is actually more complex than my opponent indicated.  There is a third major word meaning gift in the New Testament.  That word is doora. This word, however, is never used of the so-called spiritual gifts.  It is, however, used of the gift of salvation.  Cf. Eph. 2:8.  Also a discussion of gift words in the New Testament would have to take into account pneumatikos which is used at the head of 1 Corinthian 12’s discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:1.

My conclusion is quite straightforward and clear, I think, from the evidence.  Slick’s assumption that there is an important distinction between charisma and doma is completely unproven, very suspect, and actually contradicts some important New Testament data.  He who asserts must prove.  Slick asserted an (unlikely) hard and fast distinction between doma and charisma.  It is his responsibility to prove it.  He cannot.  When this distinction is examined in light of the New Testament, it is revealed as far-fetched.

The Slick-Waldron Debate:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (part 2)

by | Jan 25, 2016 | Uncategorized

I said in my first blog post that debates for me are about truth—not about winning.  I do, of course, hope the truth will win.  I also hope to do a good job for the sake of the truth and the defense of the truth.  One of the good things, then, about this debate is that I learned something more about how to defend the truth and how to answer arguments contrary to it.  Let me tell you about that.

Central to my argument against the continuation of the miraculous gifts is the assertion that the New Testament teaches that the gift of Apostles of Christ—the first and greatest gift which Christ gave to the church has ceased.  This means that there is at least one gift which has ceased.  It is also the greatest gift.  Continuationists cannot, then, argue that all the gifts continue or that the presumption is that all the gifts continue.  At least one gift does not continue, and it is the first and greatest of the gifts of Christ to the church.  This creates the very distinct possibility that other gifts may cease—gifts like prophets, tongues-speakers, miracle-workers, and healers.

Substantially, Matt’s defense against this was to assert that the gift of Apostles of Christ was not a charismatic gift—a charisma gift—but a doma gift.  Thus, the cessation of Apostles of Christ—which, I think, Matt admits—does not stand against his assertion that all the Charismatic gifts continue.  I am familiar with and in the past have responded to the assertion that Apostles of Christ are not a gift, but an office or something else.  The sufficient answer to this is that in Ephesians 4:8-11 Apostles are described as a “gift” Christ “gave” to the church.

Matt, however, asserted something else—a distinction—with which I was unfamiliar.  He asserted that there is an important difference between the word, charisma, and the word, doma.  Since Apostles are a doma gift and not a charisma gift.  Thus, Apostles are a gift, but not a charismatic gift.

As I said in my first blog, for me debates are about truth. In them in a special way it is necessary to guard the sanctity of truth.  I had emphasized that in my opening statement as follows:  “What I do not like about debates is the tendency and motivation they create in the debaters to say anything to win—whether they know it to be true or not.  I hope never to be guilty of that kind of violation of the command; Thou shalt not bear false witness.  I take this evening to be about truth—not winning—and will try to say nothing that I do not verily believe to be the truth of God’s Word.”

Thus, though everything else I knew about these issues, made me entirely doubt the validity of the distinction between doma and charisma on which Matt was basing his argument, I could not say that on the basis of my own personal study of these two words that this distinction was nonsense.  Bound by the sanctity of truth and my own stated commitment to truth in my opening statement, I determined not to say things that I have not put in the work and study to say.

I have now done the study and confirmed for myself, what I suspected, that there is no basis in Scripture for the kind of distinction Matt was making.  In fact, there is even reason to assert that Apostles are called a charisma.  That study will be the subject of my next blog post.

The Slick-Waldron Debate:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (part 1)

by | Jan 21, 2016 | Uncategorized

I have not previously blogged about debates I have been asked to participate in.  But since this was a social media event of sorts, and some things worthy of comment happened, I have decided to write some blog posts about my debate with Matt Slick.

Matt Slick and I had an opportunity to talk before our recent debate.  He seems to be an amiable guy and genuine Christian.  He says he is “Reformed” and even Amillennial like myself.  He attends (I really am not sure how, given these convictions, but I guess that is his business.) a Calvary Chapel in Boise, Idaho.  He is the man behind CARM.ORG, something which a number of my younger Reformed brothers seem to know.  My brief perusal of the site seemed to indicate that it had a wise and moderate tone about most things.  It does advocate for the continuation of the charismatic gifts, but not the continuation of Apostles of Christ.  I would characterize his view as Third Wave.  Matt also made clear that he wanted to distance himself from more extreme Charismatics and their ungodly antics.

It might seem to me—if I were you—that to rehash a debate that has already taken place is like Monday morning quarterbacking.  Hey, Bub, you either won or you didn’t. So just let it go.  I guess that attitude would be right if debates were about winning or losing.  But if that is what they are about, I will “never eat meat again” (debate).  But I made clear in my opening statement that for me that is not what debates should be about.  Here is what I said:

“I am kind of the “anti-debater.”  I take the opportunity to speak at debates only when asked and only because it gives me the chance to teach and expound what I believe to be the truth of God’s Word.  What I do not like about debates is the tendency and motivation they create in the debaters to say anything to win—whether they know it to be true or not.  I hope never to be guilty of that kind of violation of the command; Thou shalt not bear false witness.  I take this evening to be about truth—not winning—and will try to say nothing that I do not verily believe to be the truth of God’s Word.”

To try to make issues related to truth clear is never Monday morning quarterbacking.  It is simply “buying the truth and selling it not” (Proverbs 23:23).

That being said, I am going to take the time and effort in several blog posts to talk about “The Slick-Waldron Debate:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”  I do this, as I said, in the interest of what I take to be the truth.

The Ugly

We will start with the “Ugly” first.  The “Ugly” had to do with a misunderstanding on my part of the actual question in the debate.  In my statement I talked about that question as follows:  “All that being said, let me summarize in my remaining time my response to the question of the hour.  That question is: ‘Have the Gifts of Prophecy, Tongues and Healing Ceased?’  I respond in the affirmative: Yes, the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and healing have ceased!”

As you will see, if you watch the debate which is now available on YouTube, I was not allowed to speak first as is customary for the affirmative.  Rather, I spoke second.  This was my fault.  The original question which Pastor McClanahan submitted to Matt Slick and I was exactly as I here stated it.  Matt asked for the question to be changed in subsequent emails.  I agreed to this over some reluctance on the part of Pastor McClanahan.  But then I promptly forgot about the subsequent change.  I guess it did not seem significant at that time.  In the mass of other responsibilities it simply slipped my mind.  Thus, I prepared for the original question and not the one finally agreed upon.

The new question was finally—after some discussion:  “Does the Bible teach that the charismatic gifts are for today?”  This put Matt in the affirmative. It also allowed him to play with the word charismatic in the debate in a way which became central to his argument.  I learned a valuable lesson.  If I am asked to debate in the future, I will pay careful attention to the question!  I also learned some things about why Matt wanted that word, charismatic, in the question.  I want to talk about that later in these blog posts.  More next time!

 

Pin It on Pinterest